As well as the parallels across cities, and the good ideas that each could stand to steal from the other, I tried to include a couple of the many surprises we’ve encountered thus far:

At Studio-X in New York, our jaws collectively dropped as the CEO of Jetro Cash & Carry, purveyor of bulk quantities of chips to New York’s bodegas, issued a passionate plea for radical junk food taxation (“We need to tax the hell out of deep-fried products in this city!”). And I was not the only person taken aback when Toronto’s Senior Health Advisor told us that she’d taken the city’s food purchasing budget of $2 million to the Ontario Food Terminal, determined to demand more locally-grown produce, only to realize she had far too little money to negotiate effectively with the vendors there.

IMAGE: Map and table showing Toronto’s global crop imports in terms of dependence and seasonality, created by University of Toronto students Drew Adams, Fadi Masoud, Denise Pinto, Karen May, and Jameson Skaife. Found via InfranetLab, where you can see a larger version, as well as read more about the students’ proposal.

Meanwhile, if you like what you have seen or read of the Foodprint Project, and you’d like to see more events in the future, as well as receive your very own copy of the Foodprint Papers, you have just seven days to help us meet our Kickstarter fundraising goal! A huge thank you to all those who have pledged their support already, as well as helped to spread the word.